The Stag
by isidore
Summary: A stag helps Lily grieve the loss of her parents.


Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters or situations residing in the HP universe, nor am I making any money off this story. This is written purely for my own entertainment, although I hope you enjoy it as well.

Author's Note: I have no freakin' clue if James Potter's Animagus form is a Roe Deer, but I went with that because . . . well, because I wanted to. Plus it was the easiest to find info on. Anywho, here's where I got my info on Roe deer: http: Evans wrapped her cloak more firmly around herself and glanced around the apparently empty Gryffindor common room, then slipped out of the portrait hole.

She stole silently out of the castle, shutting the door silently behind her, then skipped out to the Forest.

Lily swiped a tear from her cheek, not willing to cry until she was well and truly alone.

The letter had come at breakfast, just while she and Potter were discussing business. Or more accurately, while she was discussing business and he flirted.

Professor Dumbledore had delivered it instead of an owl, because it was Muggle mail from Petunia.

Which should have been her first clue that something was terribly wrong. Petunia never wrote of her own free will, she'd had her parents send the wedding invitation via owl, and that was the first and only time Petunia had ever sent anything to the school.

Dumbledore had handed her the letter and she had torn it open right in the middle of her sentence, ranting about . . . Gods, she couldn't even remember what she'd been yelling at Potter about this morning.

All she knew was that she caught the word 'died' and had suddenly dropped silent, reading the letter.

Petunia had been cold and precise.

She shivered at the almost complete lack of feeling in the letter.

She had almost no memory after that. She remembered that her eyes had already begun dripping with tears, although her mind was completely blank.

Dumbledore had clearly not read the letter, for he had looked at her curiously.

Numbly, she'd handed him the letter to read, and when he looked back up, she had spit out a sob at the sympathy in his eyes when he handed the letter back to her.

Potter had sputtered, "What? What's wrong?"

She had snapped loudly at him (she couldn't remember what she had said), crunched up the stationary into a ball, and thrown it right in his face.

Then she had fainted.

When she woke up, Madam Pomfrey and Dumbledore were hovering around her bed, waiting for her to wake up.

"Miss Evans," Dumbledore said. "Do you feel up to going back to the dormitory?"

Lily had nodded.

Dumbledore smiled sadly at her. "Mr. Potter will be escorting you. Madam Pomfrey and I have something to discuss, but I will be up to talk with you shortly."

Potter was standing, waiting silently for her at the door of the infirmary. His smile was watery when he looked down at her, and he gently held her elbow, offering silent support, and she let him, too numb to protest.

He had escorted her into the seventh year girls dorm and pulled back her covers, leading her to sit on the bed. Very gently, with the detached care of a nurse, he removed her shoes, then swung her legs up onto the bed.

"Covers?" he had asked after replacing the letter on her night table, and she hadn't responded.

Gently, he pulled the covers over her.

"Okay?" he tried again.

She looked up at him. "Bit cold," she said softly.

He pulled out his wand and cast a warming charm over her, then knelt next to her bed, careful to stay far enough away that he wouldn't touch her accidentally. "I think Dumbledore is telling your friends," he said very softly. "I'm so sorry, Lily," he said, for the first time in a very long time using her given name.

She had nodded, and then he wiped away a tear from her cheek with his thumb before smiling at her and exiting.

James. Now there was a topic that would take her mind off her parents.

Lily had no feelings at all for Ja-_Potter_. Really. She didn't. Promise.

Just because he messed up his hair constantly on purpose to make himself look sexy—that is, stupid!

Oh sure, with those amazing brown eyes that just burned right through you, God, that was annoying. Not at all handsome and arresting.

Pouty red lips that only made Lily want to punch him in the face. She certainly didn't think about how it would feel if those lips were on hers. No.

And the way he was always nice to the younger kids. Clearly an act. Look how he treated Severus Snape!

All right, to be fair, Snape was a prick, but still!

James was an intolerable git, she thought, then tossed her hair back behind her as she reached her tree.

Protruding about a foot from the forest floor at the bottom of the large tree (it had a circumference of at least six feet) was a branch big enough to spread a picnic on. Well, really it was too thick to be called a branch. It was more like a second tree growing sideways out of the first.

Lily sat down in the junction of the tree and sighed, letting her eyes fall closed. For some reason, she always felt very safe in the tree.

She took out the now well-read letter.

p p FONT face"Monotype Corsiva" Lily,

I regret to inform you that Mother and Father were mugged on Monday night. The mugger shot them both and ran off. Our parents died in the hospital an hour later.

The mugger has been caught.

Our parents have been buried. They are in Brookwood. Please do not write back. Please do not try to contact me. /font 

The next sentence was almost more painful than the news of her parent's death.

_ p p FONT face"Monotype Corsiva" _Please realize that I now have no desire to have you attend my wedding. I invited you as a courtesy to our parents, and as they are no longer with us, I see no reason to continue that invitation.

Goodbye, Lily. I hope I never see you again.

Sincerely,

Petunia Evans (soon to be!) Dursley_ /font _

She sobbed once, then took out the note Jam-_Potter _had tucked inside the envelope.

_ p p FONT face"Batang" _I was going to burn this, but I thought you might like the honors. /font 

She sighed as she leaned against the tree and folded the note. It always felt so peaceful here, even now, at dusk, when the Forest should be growing more and more frightening.

The peaceful feeling could have come from the four animal friends she'd made.

The rat had been the first one she came across, late one night on the full moon. She'd never been one to fear animals, especially ones as helpless as rats, but she had been very careful to not touch it.

The rat had been followed by a great black dog that looked like a Grim and a large stag, and following them was a wolf.

She'd backed up against a tree in deadly fear, but the dog had stood facing the wolf, blocking its way, while the stag and the rat came closer to her, and she'd suddenly known that none of the animals would hurt her.

Tentatively, she reached toward the stag, letting it sniff her hand. When it got a good whiff, it had gently butted its head against her hand, like a cat asks to be petted.

She complied, running her hand along its nose, up to its forehead, noting how clean the pelt felt against her fingertips, though she still resolved to clean her hands as soon as she was inside. You never knew.

Later, her research in the library told her that the animals were about her age, with respect to the speed with which such animals grew. The stag's horns had two points on each one, and the Grim was not quite full-size, although still quite large. The wolf was rather smaller than any of the others, and the rat . . . well, as the animals were clearly friends, odd as that was, she had to assume that the rat was close in age.

Three of them showed up on various nights of the month, but the wolf only seemed to make an appearance on full moons, and though the group of animals did visit her every full moon she sat at her tree, they never stayed long, and the two bigger animals were always careful to stand between her and the wolf, while the rat rested on the wolf's head and, she could swear, was whispering in the wolf's ears.

She saw the stag most often. It would butt its head against her hand, forcefully insisting on being petted, although the dog was known to do the same thing, though not nearly so often or insistently as the stag.

In fact, she had noticed, on the nights when all the animals were together, the stag would snort, almost angrily, if one of the other animals attempted to be petted by her, and one night, when she had picked up the rat to pet it, she had let it crawl over her shoulders to her other hand.

It was the first time she'd become sure that animals had emotions. She'd never seen a stag look so angry as when the rat tumbled accidentally off her shoulder, clutching frantically at the front of her shirt.

The stag snorted indignantly, and as soon as she'd freed the rat, she'd put him on top of the dog, and then all four of the animals were quickly gone.

She smiled as she thought of them. They were sweet animals, even the wolf, who appeared to be a more feral than the others.

Speaking of . . .

The stag trotted out of the woods. As per usual, it butted its head against her hand.

She laughed, though it was melancholy, and incredibly, the stag seemed to sense how upset she was.

She sighed. "I'm going to talk to you" she warned.

In response, the animal simply folded its legs and sat down before her.

God, it was almost human sometimes.

"My-my parents died today. Or, well, I found out today that they died. And, incredibly, that wasn't the worst part of it." She laughed humorlessly. "My sister has been very . . . intolerant . . . of my gifts, and I always hoped that we would be able to put it behind us, but sh-she can't" Here she bit back a sob. "She can't accept me. I d-don't have anyone anymore."

And then she could no longer hold back her tears.

Dimly, she felt the stag nudging at her shoulder and involuntarily put her arms around the animal's neck, sobbing into the warm pelt.

After a time she had run out of tears.


End file.
